The Lucio night of lights is a yearly one night exhibit of light art held in Volunteer park. For this event I created a large cube that could detect what side was facing up. Based on the side the cube was on it would change color and send a signal to a group of devices that would change LED animations and ambient sound.

This was all done using low power WiFi enabled microcontrollers connecting to a Raspberry Pi Access Point running MQTT. No internet or external power was needed to run this exhibit.

The concept was to use the cube to allow people to interact with the room-like environment inside the branches of a large pine tree. This was a huge success and was the most directly interactable exhibit of the night.

This was a total Redesign of the IOT Workshop exhibit for Living Computers Museum. Home Assistant was used as an Smart Home Hub that would allow for the use of complex Automatons and security.

Part of the install also included the creation of a bench that posts to social media when being used.

Every Year the Hazard Factory hosts the Power Tool Drag Race at the Georgetown Carnival. For some, the goal is to build the fastest and most well designed racer that will outlast all others. My goal is to take the tool that has frustrated me more than any other in my shop, make it look ridiculous and figure out how to destroy it on the race track.

In 2018 I took a circular saw with worn out barrings and turned it into a racer called “The Road to Hell is Paved by Unicorns”. We set it on fire for the last race.

The Living Computers Museum was using soldering kits from SparkFun and Adafruit for the Intro to Soldering workshops, but there was interest in doing a less expensive and quicker project for this entry level class.

My experience with PCB design and the supply contacts that I had made let up explore creating an Living Computers Museum PCB kit much like the soldering badges from Maker Faire. Using OSH Park to test these badges, they then went into mass production.

Originally created as a workshop on inputs and outputs to accompany an exhibit on Barbie and Computer Science, the Mini Smart Home has turned into one of the most extensive and highly sought after workshops by every school that has helped to test it.

It has now evolved into a fully programmable Smart Home that uses MakeCode for programming logical automations. One overall lesson of this workshop has been for children to understand the difference between a Smart home and a Remote controlled home. Hopefully this will inspire the next generation of IOT professionals to create smart devices that have no need for Apps.

The goal of this project was to create an inexpensive and consistent representation of computer hardware components for use in education. Though this puzzle is simple in it’s design, all major components of modern computers are present in much the way they appear in any computer.

This has since turned into the most popular school field trip at the Living Computers Museum and is set to expand by the end of 2019.

I was invited to join representatives of the maker community from the US to meet with the executive branch of the White House in the Roosevelt Administrative building. The purpose of the visit was to talk to key members of the executive branch and work out how the federal government could continue to support the maker community.

Ubisoft asked for SoDo MakerSpace to host a workshop for 16 of the top Watch Dogs 2 players for PAX Seattle. We used the Adafruit NeoPixel Goggle kits so that attendees had a chance to solder, program, and embellish their own LED goggles.

I am a regular participant on Adafruit’s weekly show and tell podcast as well as a creator of tutorials for IOT, robotics, and Arduino education. Recently working on educational uses for the Crickit, Circuit Playground Express, Feather, and PyBadge platforms.

I was commissioned to make a human powered painting machine for the yearly Amazon company picnic. Dubbed the PollockTron 5000, this installation required two people to move a paint brush over a canvas using a series of pulleys.

I was in charge of designing and building multiple props and puzzles for Puzzle Break’s Seattle location. They wanted custom electronics that would blend into ordinary looking objects that would transform or give out clues during the game. This was a first step in creating electronics that could replicate video game style mechanics and action at a distance.

Provided mentorship for at risk and underserved teenagers at the SoDo MakerSpace. Showing them how to take an idea and turn that into a product using rapid prototyping machines like the laser cutter and 3D printers.

Using my robotics platform, Hack-E-bot, to teach Scrum Methodology to executives at Lockheed Martin. This took place at their headquarters in Maryland over the course of 3 days.

Providing web development help along with educational hardware development. RaasIO works with organizations like the Technology Access Foundation(TAF), Geek Girls Carrots, and the Seattle Public Library.

Hack-E-Bot started as an attempt to see just how inexpensive an entry level robotics kit was for a robotics showcase at a sci fi convention. The idea was that attendees could spend a small amount of money and take robot home. We quickly found out that robotics kits were either too expensive or too basic. So Richard decided to see if he could design a new type of robotics kit that was low price and easily scale-able. Somewhere along the way Richard realized that this project would be well suited for early STEM learning and the low price aspect meant that it would be accessible to low income families. Hack-E-Bot has now attracted the attention of educational organisations who are helping to support and eventually incorporate this system into the class room. Other organizations like Intel and Lockheed Martin are already starting to use a branded version of the Hack-E-Bot, by Robotics as a Service I/O(RaaSIO), to showcase their open source technology and the importance of smart engendering.